Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky is a world-renowned author, linguist, and advocate for democracy. He is the critically acclaimed author of many books, including Hegemony or Survival, Imperial Ambitions, Failed States, Manufacturing Consent, and Media Control. He lives in Massachusetts where he is Institute Professor Emeritus in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT.

Noam Chomsky was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on December 7, 1928. He studied linguistics, mathematics, and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1955, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and began teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is Institute Professor Emeritus in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy.

During the years 1951 to 1955, Chomsky was a Junior Fellow of the Harvard University Society of Fellows. While a Junior Fellow he completed his doctoral dissertation entitled, "Transformational Analysis." The major theoretical viewpoints of the dissertation appeared in the monograph Syntactic Structure, which was published in 1957 and is widely credited with having revolutionized the field of modern linguistics. This formed part of a more extensive work, The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory, circulated in mimeograph in 1955. Most of a 1956 version was published in 1975.

In 1961, Chomsky was appointed full professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics (now the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy) at MIT. From 1966 to 1976 he held the Ferrari P. Ward Professorship of Modern Languages and Linguistics. In 1976 he was appointed Institute Professor, a position he held until 2002.
Chomsky is the author of numerous influential political works, including Failed States (Metropolitan Books), Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance (Metropolitan Books), 9/11 (Open Media Series/ Seven Stories Press), Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media with Ed Herman (Pantheon), Necessary Illusions (South End Press), Understanding Power (New Press), Interventions (Open Media Series/ City Lights), Hopes and Prospects (Haymarket) and many other titles.

In 1988, Chomsky received the Kyoto Prize in Basic Science, given “to honor those who have contributed significantly to the scientific, cultural, and spiritual development of mankind.” The prize noted that “Dr. Chomsky’s theoretical system remains an outstanding monument of 20th century science and thought. He can certainly be said to be one of the great academicians and scientists of this century.”

Noam Chomsky is widely known and deeply admired for being the founder of modern linguistics, one of the founders of the field of cognitive science, and perhaps the most avidly read political theorist and commentator of our time.In these lectures, he presents a lifetime of philosophical reflection...

"From 9-11 to the Iraq War, from the 'non-crisis' of social security to the leveling of Lebanon, Chomsky provides informed opinion and critical analysis" – Mumia Abu-Jamal
Short, forceful commentaries on U.S. politics from Latin America to the Middle East.

Two of the twentieth century's most influential thinkers debate a perennial question.In 1971, at the height of the Vietnam War and at a time of great political and social instability, two of the world's leading intellectuals, Noam Chomsky and Michel...